Sunday, September 24, 2006

Hyperlinking bans

Looked at the "terms and conditions" section on a South African corporate website recently?

I noticed that at least two of the big four banks, a large listed IT company, and another top listed holding company have notices that require written permission for incoming hyperlinks to those sites. (I'd link to them, but, if their websites are to be believed, I could get sued).

I seriously doubt that search engines like Google ask for permission before indexing and linking to pages on those sites.

The draconian (and absurd) warnings on these websites, that prohibit even linking to their home pages without written permission, are a sign that a lot of South African companies remain absolutely clueless about the nature of the web.